


No such thing as happy endings in this fairy tale

by jean_tresjean



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, No Beta, Potterlock, Winterlock (almost a year late)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jean_tresjean/pseuds/jean_tresjean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No such thing as happy endings in this fairy tale

The flat is empty. Well, almost empty. Sherlock is here but Sherlock doesn’t count. He is rubbish company. The skull no longer adorns the mantelpiece. The severed head no longer graces the fridge. John’s chair is absent from the living room. Sherlock has put away his violin. His wand and his phone have been confiscated by his brother. John is gone. Sherlock feels empty. House arrest is boring.  
***  
Two years on the run is made considerably easier by magic but none of that could change the fact that Sherlock had died. He has been a shell of his former self. He is an Inferius. It would have been easier to die, certainly, and Sherlock hates whomever it was that brought him back. He hates himself. Now more than ever, he needs his fix. Some nights he think he’ll leave the house to seek out his opiate but he isn’t sure if that will lead him to a crack den, a crime scene or the cozy flat that John and Mary call home. His mind is buzzing. Busy bee, that’s what had Mycroft said. His brain runs in over time to make up for a lack of heart.   
Distractions make him feel alive. Magic isn’t enough. Engrossing himself with the muggle world once more is the only thing that keeps him sane. First there’s the wedding. That fills time. Sherlock has never planned a wedding. He has never planned an event even, unless you counted Mycroft’s twentieth birthday, a birthday entirely devoid of cake. 

Wedding planning is not simplified by the fact that Sherlock is a wizard. If anything, it is complicated because, of course, Mary cannot know about magic. It has gone unspoken between Sherlock and John that she should not know what a freak Sherlock really is. So Sherlock must do a million things by hand that he normally would have done with magic. He does not complain because this is a challenge and this helps to distract him. However, he does give up on folding the serviettes by hand and takes out his wand when Mary is out of the room. “Where’d you learn to do that?” she asks him when she returns. 

“Many unexpected skills required in the field of criminal investigation,” Sherlock spouts off but, when pressed, Sherlock lies and says he looked it up. Mary appears to be satisfied with this answer. Sherlock is both pleased and annoyed with the fact that he actually likes her and that she, in turn, likes the napkins. 

There are, of course, cases, which Sherlock makes a point to bring John along on. There are cases and there is magic. There are sparks when Sherlock snaps his fingers or brushes against John’s shoulder. Things are almost normal. Sherlock is scared by his past and uncertain of his future. An uncertain future no longer means unlimited possibilities. It means fear. But Sherlock doesn’t dare think about that.

***

Wedding day. Day of the wedding! Mrs Hudson is far too excited for Sherlock’s taste but then again, she always is. The church is full of John’s boring muggle friends. Friends who don’t even like John. Sherlock envies them. Mary’s friends are muggles as well. Well, all muggles except for the head bridesmaid. They both know what the other is. If Sherlock wasn’t so distraught, he might like her. The reception goes well. Sherlock is bored and makes paper airplanes fly across the garden for the amusement of the ring bearer. John’s Major Sholto arrives. Sherlock is thinking too much again. The best man’s speech earns Sherlock a hug from John. Sherlock wants to shrink away and die. So of course the realization that someone has been murdered come as a relief. Never has he felt such a sense of urgency. 

This is a record that is quickly broken however because a mere half an hour later, a man is locked in his room threatening to commit suicide. Sherlock is appropriately appalled. There is little they can do. Correction: there is little a muggle can do. Sherlock could easily unlock the door. With a flick of his wand, Sherlock could disarm the man. He cannot though, because Mary is here and Mary is babbling and Mary mustn’t know. “What’s she talking about? Get your wife under control,” Sherlock snaps. 

/Get her out of here/, Sherlock means to say. /Let me save him/ Sherlock pleads but John denies him. 

“She’s right,” John retorts, which is a harsh reality for Sherlock to face. She’s always right for John, isn’t she? What about the days you thought I was brilliant? Sherlock wants to say. What about the days where my magic was special? But Mary has John fully under her spell and this out shines any talent Sherlock may have for opening locks with his breath and a twig. Sherlock solves the mystery anyways because he is willing to play second best.

John is the doctor but Sherlock rather enjoys being his nurse. John directs Mary to call an ambulance. “Outside?” he adds pointedly.   
“I’m a nurse!” Mary protests. Sherlock keeps his head down. John just looks to her pleadingly. “I’ll meet the paramedics outside,” she concedes. With Mary gone and Major Sholto half awake, Sherlock takes out his wand and cauterizes the wound. Sherlock allows himself a brief glance at John (well it was a brief glance in the same way many of Sherlock’s glances were when it came to John: prolonged and puppy eyed). He can see the terror mingled with admiration John has written across his face. He wonders what John and Sholto’s past holds that he never brought it up with Sherlock. He wonders what that means. It doesn’t matter now. Major Sholto will live. 

***

Sherlock plays his violin for John and for Mary. With his music, he tries to say what words cannot. Written out in measures is a testament to Sherlock’s hope for their future together. Each note is a well wish and every rest is a chance to breath. Each repeat is a second chance because there aren’t enough of those, it seems to Sherlock. Perhaps it is not a realistic hope but writing it was a good distraction. Playing it, Sherlock gets lost letting himself think that maybe it could be a song for him and John. The song ends because lives end. People clap either way. 

Sherlock did not expect to be playing for a third member of the family. New life. Too many deductions. After a flash of fear, John’s happiness is written across his face. Sherlock is adept enough in understanding human nature to read this but he refuses to wax poetic about the wisdom of the expectant mother because Mary does not appear sage. She is shocked by the news. She is happy. She doesn’t have a magic mother’s air about her though. Sherlock smiles. Too many deductions. Sherlock is dying.

***

Janine is the best distraction. She is a witch and had been a few years ahead of Sherlock at school. For the short time that she and Sherlock are together, Sherlock doesn’t have to worry about surprising her with flying teapots or exploding biscuits. When Sherlock sends jinxes hurdling at the wall, Janie doesn’t complain, she joins in. 

Then again, when they are sitting on the sofa and Sherlock summons a blanket, she isn’t impressed like John had been. Her face didn’t light up like John’s did. Sherlock doesn’t want to think about John. Janine kisses his pouting lips and he does not stop her. He can no longer pretend it simply for a case when Janine provides such comfort.

Janine isn’t there, however, when Lady Smallwood arrives. She isn’t there to listen raptly as Lady Smallwood describes to him the spells protecting Appledor. Janine wouldn’t have understood the complexity of it any more than John.

Hatred is new to Sherlock. Sherlock had thought he had known hatred before. He had thought he hated lazy Sundays, exams and EastEnders but this time Sherlock is sure of it: He hates Charles Augustus Magnusson. 

Muggle violence. It’s appalling, his mother said when he and Mycroft had bickered and fought as children. It’s beneath you. The thing is, it is tremendously satisfying. It is instant gratification. Blood and brain matter. Splatter, absorbing into the concrete. John. John’s voice. Christ Sherlock. Oh, Christ, Sherlock. The swift chop chop chopping of the helicopters. Save Mary. Save John. Prove yourself. The rush of blood in his ears is deafening. Pounding. Sherlock’s heartbeat. Stops. 

Sherlock feels empty. He has let John go. He has surrendered his wand (connection to the Wizarding World) and his phone (connection to the Muggle World). Playing the violin no longer helps him think. There is no John. There are no experiments. There is no John. There is no skull. He has no flat mate. Sherlock isn’t surprised. He knows that he is rubbish company. 

“The game is over,” John says. They’re standing on the tarmac. There’s a plane waiting.

Sherlock smiles. There’s a wind blowing and Sherlock swears he can feel the magic in it. In John’s sorry smile.

“The game is never over, John. The magic never dies.”


End file.
